


If I Didn't Have Your Love

by laireshi



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Avengers Vol. 5 (2013), Betrayal, Emotional Hurt, Love/Hate, M/M, incursions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 13:17:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13249029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: “We need to end this,” Tony said.Steve felt cold all over.“I love you,” Tony said. “I will always love you. But I can’t do it.” He was shaking, on the verge of tears, and Steve understood something terrible had happened.





	If I Didn't Have Your Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



> For the following prompt: "Hickmanvengers, A#44: Just why exactly did Old Steve feel the need to deliver a full out breaking-up speech to SIM!Tony?".  
> Except I put the de-SIM-ed Tony here because I prefer him that way.
> 
> Please note the "chose not to tag" warning; I wasn't sure what else to use. This is not a happy fic and it follows the canon ending of Avengers #44. (So we know the world will get restarted, even if it doesn't happen in this fic, and obviously Steve and Tony don't know that. ~~Nor would they be particularly happy to know, at this point.~~ )

Steve didn’t dream of Tony’s hands.

He didn’t dream of Tony’s long fingers, covered in calluses, of how they felt when Tony touched him, little casual touches throughout the day; he definitely didn’t think of how they felt when Tony stretched him and Steve clung to him, the air hot between their bodies.

He didn’t think of Tony’s eyes, blue like the sky; of how they lit up when Tony smiled at him bright as a sun, of how Steve never once noticed when they clouded over, when Tony spent months lying to him with his every gesture.

He didn’t remember Tony’s mouth, all the soft kisses and the desperate ones, too. He didn’t remember how Tony’s voice would go low when Steve reached for him, he didn’t remember how Tony sounded when he said, _I love you_ ; how he sounded when he said, _we need to end this_ and added _but let’s stay friends_ and he was desperate and sad and even as his heart was breaking, all Steve wanted to do was to make Tony laugh again.

He didn’t think of any of it. He didn’t think of _Tony_. He thought of the monster.

He thought of the monster who betrayed him and used him and lied to him. He thought of how Tony was worse than any supervillain they’d ever faced: at least they didn’t pretend. (And even if they were heroes in their own stories, well, none of them pretended to _care about Steve_ ).

This was his routine: _don’t think about Tony_ , definitely don’t think about the ring he’d bought and hadn’t gotten a chance to offer; _don’t think about Tony_ , definitely don’t think about the Avengers World and trying to fix their _friendship_ ; think about the monster building bombs to commit a genocide and think of how to stop him. 

The world was ending. Steve still thought that Tony was a bigger threat. 

_Take the monster out, Steve_.

Steve wasn’t sure of anything anymore, but this: he needed to stop Tony to save the world. It was the right thing to do. 

Tony had laughed at him, but Steve knew better now. He would prepare. He wouldn’t let him go. 

The world was ending. Handling Tony was more important.

***

_The world almost ended again. The Serpent had plunged everything into chaos. But they survived, and they would move on. They always did._

_Tony stood in the ruins of the Avengers Tower, his shoulders hunched. Steve, not for the first time, was overcome with the urge to comfort him._

_“We rebuild it,” he said._

_Tony argued. He usually did. But finally he said, **Okay** , and Steve smiled and touched his shoulder in a silent reassurance. _

_Later, back in the Avengers Mansion where they temporarily moved to again, Tony leant against the wall._

_“I’m just so tired, Steve,” he said. “Rebuilding is my thing, isn’t it? But now—I don’t know if I can keep doing it.”_

_“You can,” Steve said, coming up to him._

_“Yeah?” Tony asked, eyes wide and hopeful, as if Steve’s word meant the world._

_“Yeah,” Steve said and kissed him._

_Tony’s smile had never before been as bright._

***

Steve jolted awake. His eyes were burning. He had an urge to punch something.

_Don’t think of Tony Stark_ , he repeated, his mantra. _Take the monster out_.

( _Don’t let him hurt you again_.)

He looked at the time. It was too early to get up, even for him. He didn’t need questions on top of everything else, so he closed his eyes tight, and forced his body to go back to sleep.

_Do not think of Tony Stark_ , he thought again and again; a warped lullaby.

***

_“I love you,” Tony said, wrapping his arms around Steve and kissing him thoroughly._

_Steve smiled and kissed him back._

_They walked out of the quinjet together, holding hands, into the Wakandan Necropolis._

_Steve failed. Tony laughed at him._

_Tony kept laughing as he told Strange to wipe Steve’s mind._

_Steve had never meant anything to him at all._

_***_

He woke up, shivering. He somehow expected Tony to walk in, ask, _Bad dream?_ like he didn’t fucking know—

Tony knew, and Tony lied to him for months, but Steve _remembered_ , and now Tony will get what he deserves.

Justice.

(But Steve doubts he could ever make him hurt as much as Tony hurt him.)

He didn’t care for the time now. He couldn’t go back to sleep. He got up. He pulled on his uniform; the tactics suit not quite meant for his old body. He went to the Helicarrier bridge and logged in with his credentials.

_Priority mission: track Tony Stark_.

The incursions could wait.

***

_“We need to end this,” Tony said._

_Steve felt cold all over._

_“I love you,” Tony said. “I will always love you. But I can’t do it.” He was shaking, on the verge of tears, and Steve understood something terrible had happened._

_“Why?” he asked._

_Tony shook his head. “It’s for the best,” he said, and it surprised Steve how much Tony believed it._

_“Let’s—let’s stay friends, for now,” Tony said, and Steve would’ve done anything in that moment to make him happy._

_“Let’s do that,” he agreed._

_Tony looked as if he was about to collapse. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you, Steve.”_

_Steve didn’t let himself cry until he was alone, and all the time, he wondered, **what happened to Tony?**_

_But it was Tony. He’d come and talk to Steve. They’d solve it together. It’d be fine, eventually._

_Except the next morning Tony was acting as if nothing had ever happened, smiling and joking with Steve, and Steve was more lost than ever before._

_Still; Tony seemed happy, planning the new team with him, and so it had to be enough._

***

Steve woke up and promptly punched the wall next to his bed. It held: either because it was reinforced like everything else at the Helicarrier, or because Steve was too weak to be able to break anything anymore.

_Don’t think of Tony Stark_.

_Take the monster out_.

Except that, of course: he’d break that monster. He’d make him pay.

Across from him, his tablet beeped once.

Steve was near it in a split second.

_Tony Stark, localisation: Stark Tower_ , it said.

Of fucking course.

But that was Steve’s chance.

***

An incursion was going on above their heads. It wasn’t important. So the world was ending. It _could_ end, any moment now.

It was _Tony_ who was important. Tony, and making him understand just what he’d done to Steve.

So Steve did the only thing he could at the end of the world: he went to Tony.

Tony, who wasn’t quite himself anymore, or so the reports said—but Steve wasn’t sure. He thought that maybe that Tony, the one who set Extremis loose on innocent humans and got drunk every day, was the real Tony. It would explain so much.

(Except not how Steve could’ve been so stupid and let himself fall in love with that man. Maybe Tony was right to laugh at him.)

Steve was too old to fight him anymore, so he put on an Iron Man suit; one that must’ve been built especially for him, in his colours. He didn’t feel good in it, though there was a sort of a poetic justice in it: bring down the monster with his own tools.

Steve smashed through the windows on the top floor. Tony was immediately engulfed in his white armour that wasn’t like him at all.

“I wondered if you’d come,” he said, his voice quiet. His faceplate was open, and Steve could see Tony looked bad, even sick. He scanned the apartment quickly, but there wasn’t a bottle of alcohol in sight. Tony had sallow skin and looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He resembled more the Tony, guilty, constantly on edge, running himself into exhaustion all the time, that Steve _worried_ about just before he remembered just what it was that Tony had been hiding. He didn’t look at all like the decadent villain selling his tech to the highest bidder whom Steve had seen on TV and read about in reports.

Which meant the reports were true, and something had happened to Tony, and now he was back to himself.

It changed _nothing_.

Everything Tony had done to Steve, he had done in his right mind. So the monster was hidden under the mask for now, so what? Steve knew it was there.

“You lied to me,” Steve said.

“You know we only have minutes left to live.” Tony tilted his head questioningly.

“ _I don’t care_!” Steve yelled. “Everything’s changed! I don’t know you anymore at all—and I don’t want to!” He was breathing heavily. He needed to let it out. Make Tony understand—even if he didn’t believe that was possible. “You and I . . . We are finished!”

Tony was very, very pale. “I know,” he said quietly.

“You used me, you lied to me—”

“I did,” Tony agreed, almost sorrowful. “We already had that conversation.”

“How could you?” Steve asked, finally, his voice shaking.

“How couldn’t I?” Tony asked back. “I thought you’d never agree with us, that’s true. I _feared_ that you might. How could I let face you such a choice? It destroyed all of us.”

“You gave _everyone_ the courtesy of choice,” Steve said. “ _Everyone_. But not me. You ruined me yourself.”

Tony didn’t even try to avoid the punch. It didn’t feel half as satisfying as Steve had imagined. 

Tony fell to his knees, spitting out blood. 

“I did,” he croaked out. “To save you.” A hollow laugh. “I failed.”

“Was it worth it?” Steve asked, raising his shield.

He could bring it down. He could finish it, in the last moments of their world.

Tony shook his head.

Steve didn’t get to decide this time, either.

The incursion completed; two worlds met and were destroyed in barely a second.

It was over.


End file.
